ok, so I wanted to reinstall Suse 9.2 on my wife's PC but didn't want to do the 4 hours of downloading with the FTP install. I have burned the DVD wich I used to install on my laptop. I borrowed the DVD drive from my gaming PC (no WOW on linux) and slapped it into our compaq. I installed 9.2 and then put the old CD ROM back in. Now the machine will not see the CDROM and I can't get it to mount the damn thing. I know the CDROM works becuase I can boot from it.

What commands do I need to toss at this thing so it sees the CD ROM and remembers it everytime?

I cant give you any advice as I am a newbie but dosent changing your hardware after installation invalidate the earlier one. run "dmesg" to make sure it isnt recognized. maybe you can add a line to your /ect/fstab to make it work but I dont know exactly what's that. persevere help will come along.

I'd like to help. What does it say when you go to a shell and type "mount /dev/cdrom"? What does "cat /etc/fstab" report. Is there a cdrom device file in /dev? You are saying that you can boot a disc off it but the kernel isn't picking it up right.


Might also get some ideas if you look in your boot log "dmesg | less"? Look for cdrom stuff. Any other info you can provide would be usefull.

Nope, linux kernel doesn't keep a database of you hardware. It probes you hardware at boot every single time. You can swap out the motherboard and it won't know or even care.

Not even SuSe should get screwed up just because you change your CD/DVD?
Did you put it in the same place - that is, same contact of the cable?
It could be just a namechange:
A CD-rom is called /media/cdrom, a DVD-rom /media/dvd, a cdburner /media/cdrecorder...
Check your /etc/fstab, post it here.
You could also try to mount it manually:
#mount /dev/hdc /media/cdrom
that /dev/hdc is where it is, hdb=primary slave, hdc=secondary master, hdd=secondary slave.
The mountpoint (/media/cdrom) must exist.
(And don't forget to put a disc in the drive before mounting.)

I found it. I wasn't pressing ADD in the config box. Whoops! Thanks guys!!

woops 2 late... anyways good you got it sorted!

Just a few thoughts...

Are you using a scsi or ide device? have you checked if /dev/hdx or dev/sdx (*where x is the normally assigned drive letter exists) Did you compiled a custom kernel after install? Is cdrom support in the kernel? or do you need to load a module?

goodluck!